Breakthrough Breast Cancer External Seminar Series | Signalling crosstalk pathways in cancer cells and development of marker-guided clinical trials
| Dates: | 2 June 2014 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 17:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Institute of Cancer Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | Adults, Alumni, Current University students, University staff |
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| Speaker: | Dr Mien-Chie Hung |
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Host: Institute of Cancer Sciences
Speaker:
Mien-Chie Hung, Ph.D., Vice President, Basic Research; Professor and Chair, Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA
About the event:
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly heterogeneous and recurrent subtype of breast cancer that lacks an effective targeted therapy. To identify candidate therapeutic targets, we profiled global gene expression in TNBC and breast tumor-initiating cells with a patient survival dataset. Eight TNBC-related kinases were found to be overexpressed in TNBC cells with stem-like properties. Among them, expression of PKC-?, MET and CDK6 correlated with poorer survival outcomes. In cases co-expressing two of these three kinases, survival rates were lower than in cases where only one of these kinases was expressed. In functional tests, two-drug combinations targeting these three kinases inhibited TNBC cell proliferation and tumorigenic potential in a cooperative manner. A combination of PKC-??MET inhibitors also attenuated tumor growth in a cooperative manner in vivo. Our findings define three kinases critical for TNBC growth and offer a preclinical rationale for their candidacy as effective therapeutic targets in treating TNBC.
We also developed a breast cancer specific expression vector can specifically target breast cancer cells but not normal cells. Our study also presents a new strategy for killing breast cancer stem cells and for increasing their susceptibility to other therapies, thus lowering the chance of chemoresistance and recurrence (Cancer Cell 20:341-356, 2011). Cancer stem cells are a major culprit for drug resistance and recurrence. This study has important clinical implication and has been selected in the Leading Edge of Targeted Therapeutics in the Oct 14, 2011 issue of Cell.
Speaker
Dr Mien-Chie Hung
Role: Vice President, Basic Research
Organisation: MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas
Travel and Contact Information
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Holt Major
Paterson Building,
CRUK Manchester Institute
Wilmslow Road
Withington
Manchester
Manchester
